“It’s a very dangerous state. You are inclined to recklessness and kind of tune out the rest of your life and everything that’s been important to you. It’s actually not all that pleasurable. I don’t know who the hell wants to get in a situation where you can’t bear an hour without somebody’s company.”
– Colin Firth


“It is not so incomprehensible as you pretend, sweet pea. Love is the feeling we have for those we care deeply about and hold in high regard. It can be light as the hug we give a friend or heavy as the sacrifices we make for our children. It can be romantic, platonic, familial, fleeting, everlasting, conditional, unconditional, imbued with sorrow, stoked by sex, sullied by abuse, amplified by kindness, twisted by betrayal, deepened by time, darkened by difficulty, leavened by generosity, nourished by humor and “loaded with promises and commitments” that we may or may not want or keep.”
– Cheryl Strayed, “Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar”


“Don’t you dare, for one minute,
believe that my kindness makes me
anything but insurmountable.
I did not unzip my chest to every kind of hurt,
and stagger back, wounded and alive,
just to hear you call me weak for trying.
I opened my door to Heartache—
I gave her the fucking key.
My softness for wayward strangers
has made me nothing less
than a halfway house for aching soles.
So when you open your mouth
and call me ‘baby’
understand that I am not your next victim
in a laundry list of broken girls.
You think I don’t know you? People like you?
People with mouths for hands.
I’ve got skin like topsoil
and your teeth could never take root.
So when you go looking to make a plaything
of a sunburst,
you better look for someone with less fire
than me.
Because softness or no,
I will eat you alive
before I let you make a meal of me. “

You had to stand there saying:
I love you, I love you, I love you
we’re soul mates, you and I, but that doesn’t mean it works
that doesn’t mean it works
that means my soul can’t bear to be without yours
but that doesn’t mean it works
- Trista Mateer

Do not fall in love with people like me.
I will take you to museums, and parks, and monuments, and kiss you in every beautiful place, so that you can never go back to them without tasting me like blood in your mouth.
I will destroy you in the most beautiful way possible. And when I leave you will finally understand, why storms are named after people.
-Caitlyn Siehl

Joseph Cook
